The K98 was, like countless other rifles in the world, built on the design of the Gewehr 98 (G98). Shortly after World War I, in which the G98 served, the Wehrmacht decided to modify the G98 into a shorter and less bulky gun.
But the new version, Karabiner 98b had the same length as the Gewehr 98 and was only minorly changed.

By 1935 the German Army had adopted a shorter version of the K98 - The Karabiner 98 kurtz (short) and was shortened by 140mm to 1107.5mm.

The 98k was then the most common infantryman rifle in the German Wehrmacht during the duration of World War II. 2,769,533 K98k rifles were available at the start of WWII and another 7.540,058 were delivered before the end of the war.

The Kar98k could mount different types Zielfernrohre (Zf) (sniper-scopes) ranging from the Zielfernrohr 40 and Zf 41 with a zoom factor of 1.5 to the Zf 39 and Zf 4 (also called Zf 43) with a 4x zoom. Six percent of the 98k - production were to be fitted with a rail for scopes, but this number was never met with soldiers using them.